


Snow

by MoreThanSlightly (cadignan)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Multi, Snow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-16
Updated: 2015-02-16
Packaged: 2018-03-13 04:20:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3367568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cadignan/pseuds/MoreThanSlightly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(I had to drive through a blizzard for three hours yesterday and this is how I entertained myself.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Snow

The hike back to the road is arduous even with snowshoes. Bucky marches in front of him in determined silence. He’s usually a little more celebratory after they take out a HYDRA base, even if all they do is torch the remains of the building. Two weeks ago, as they’d been shaking the cinders out of their hair in the Ukrainian woods, Bucky had smiled at him.

But now they’re in the Alaskan wilderness, and underneath the layers of white and grey camo, Bucky’s shoulders are set. Steve doesn’t know what changed between today and two weeks ago. He doesn’t think Bucky got wounded back at the base, but Bucky rarely reveals that kind of sensitive information to him. Steve can never tell if it’s because Bucky’s hiding his vulnerabilities or if it’s because he genuinely doesn’t notice pain.

He never thought he’d miss Bucky’s wartime whining so much.

Snow and darkness are both falling, even though it’s only the afternoon. It’ll be fully dark by the time they reach the rendez-vous point. Steve has no information about the extraction other than the coordinates. He hopes that once they reach the road, they won’t have to be exposed to the weather any longer. Sometimes it feels like HYDRA put all their bases in wintry climates just to spite him.

Steve puts his head down to stop the snow from getting in his eyes. He puts one foot in front of the other and tries not to worry about Bucky. A lost cause, but it gives him something to do until they reach the road.

He’s so focused on picking his way through the snow and the trees that when they finally do reach the road and Bucky stops in front of him, Steve nearly slams into him. But Bucky has a preternatural awareness of his surroundings, so he whips around and catches Steve with a hand to the shoulder before it happens. Steve’s mind goes as blank as the untouched snowy road. Bucky has a light grey scarf wrapped around the lower half of his face and a knit cap of the same color pulled low over his forehead. Only his eyes are visible. He has snow caught in his lashes.

Stiffly, Bucky removes his hand from Steve’s shoulders.

“Are you okay?” Steve blurts. Bucky doesn’t like to be asked that, probably because when he first got back Steve asked him a hundred thousand times a day. But Steve’s been wondering for hours. As much as he meant to keep it to himself, one look into Bucky’s eyes screws up all his plans.

Bucky nods once. A few strands of dark hair are escaping from under his cap. How is it possible for him to be distractingly beautiful when only an inch of his face is visible?

“Really?” Steve says, just to be sure. His breath fogs the air.

Bucky rolls his eyes. “Really,” he says, through the scarf. “I just fuckin’ hate the cold, that’s all.”

Steve smiles, relieved and in total agreement. “Me too,” he says. ‘Hate’ is an understatement. Arctic ice still haunts his nightmares. He can’t begin to imagine how Bucky feels. “Too bad HYDRA didn’t put any of their secret bases in Hawai’i, huh?”

Bucky reaches between them and brusquely rearranges Steve’s scarf so that it covers his face. The gesture itself is perfunctory, but Steve thrills at the affection anyway. It’s exactly the sort of thing he would have grumbled about, before the serum— _don’t need you mothering me, Barnes_ —but in this upside-down future, he finds himself grinning under the layers of black wool that now cover his face.

Steve hadn’t bothered to dress entirely in white and grey. His shield was visible no matter what, so it didn’t matter much if his scarf and coat were black. Bucky, on the other hand, had proved incredibly finicky about his gear. Steve is pretty sure the scarf and hat Bucky’s wearing are cashmere, with a price tag to match, but he doesn’t care. He would buy Bucky the Statue of Liberty if Bucky showed any interest in it. Luckily, Bucky’s rare desires are considerably less monumental. He likes eating falafel from the cart around the corner from their apartment and sleeping under six to twelve blankets.

The hat and scarf make sense, now that Steve thinks about it. He had been so happy that Bucky had taken an interest in what he was going to wear—like his pre-War vanity blossoming after a thaw—that Steve had hardly paid attention when they were in the store together. But of course Bucky hates the cold.

An engine rumbles in the distance, and when Steve glances up the road, he can see headlights cutting through the trees. It can only be their extraction. The remote road is so covered by snow that it is only distinguishable as a break in the surrounding woods.

As the vehicle approaches, Steve can see that it’s a giant snow plow. It pulls up next to them with a spray of snow. Bucky turns away in distaste. The door opens, and Natasha hops down, her boots making deep imprints in the snow when she lands. Her red hair stands out in stark contrast to all the white she’s wearing.

“Gotta pee,” she says. “Get in and warm up.”

Bucky clambers up into the cab and slides to the other end of the bench, leaving space for Steve after him. When Natasha shows up a moment later, Steve says, “You drove all the way out here. Want me to drive?”

She snorts, sending a puff of air up toward her white fur hat. “I let you drive to New Jersey one time and suddenly you think you run things.” She shuts the door and settles into the driver’s seat. “There’s a storm coming. I’m not letting a nonagenarian New Yorker who’s been awake for thirty hours and just hiked through the snow from fuck-knows-where drive this thing.”

Steve holds his hands up in surrender. “I was just offering.”

“Offer declined. Besides, I just used this cool little cardboard thing to pee standing up in the woods, and now I’m rescuing you two by driving the giant snow plow—which I commandeered using nothing but a very authoritative tone of voice—into an Alaskan snowstorm. Let me have my moment.”

“Rescuing,” Bucky repeats, clearly skeptical.

“Don’t talk back, Barnes. I will turn this car around.”

Natasha flashes a grin at Bucky and he rolls his eyes. Steve can’t see his mouth because he’s even more hunched down into all his layers of cold-weather protection now that they’re sitting down, but he thinks Bucky might be—not quite smiling, but definitely not frowning, either. His mood seems to have improved now that they’re out of the snow.

As Natasha steers them through the blizzard, steady despite the treacherous surface of the road, Steve relaxes. He slips off his hat and gloves in the warmth of the cab. He keeps the scarf around his face out of some absurd sentimental feeling. Bucky wouldn’t notice if Steve took it off now, but it doesn’t matter. Bucky so rarely lets his guard down. Any kind of affection is precious.

Bucky is settled in next to him. Their shoulders are touching but it’s only because the truck cab is small for three people, especially when two of them are supersoldiers. He’s looking out the window through the narrow gap between his scarf and his hat, and Steve follows his gaze.

The windshield is icy and foggy, since the wipers can barely keep up with the snowfall while they’re driving. But the passenger side window allows a clear view of the purple darkness outside, with its lace border of snow-covered trees along the road. From here in the warmth, where Steve is protected from the blizzard and seated between two people he adores, it’s beautiful.

Bucky isn’t talkative these days, and Natasha is too focused on driving to make conversation, so Steve find his thoughts drifting. He doesn’t realize he’s closed his eyes under they drive over some rough snow and he jerks awake. Bucky jerks awake next to him, then assesses his surroundings with a look and instantly goes back to sleep.

On Steve.

Steve lets his shoulders rest against the back on the bench and hopes his skyrocketing heart rate doesn’t wake Bucky. He tries to stay very still. He becomes aware that Natasha is stealing glances at him after a moment, and then he feels grateful that the scarf is still covering half his face.

“Eyes on the road,” he mutters.

She lets out a little whisper of a laugh, shakes her head, and focuses on the road. “You were cuter when you were asleep.”

“Shut up,” he says, too embarrassed to come up with a better response. She leaves him alone for a minute after that, and he works up the courage to free his right arm from where Bucky has trapped it against his body so that he can wrap it around Bucky’s waist. Bucky’s head lolls against his shoulder, and Steve would love to reach up and pull his cap off and run his fingers through Bucky’s hair, but he can’t take that kind of liberty. This much contact—this much intimacy—is already too much of a rarity. Steve can’t risk fucking it up somehow.

Natasha takes one hand off the steering wheel and reaches down to squeeze his knee in reassurance. “You’re alright,” she says. In the glow of the dashboard light, he can see that she’s smiling. “Go back to sleep, Steve. I’ll get us home.”

He touches her hand and wonders, sleepily, if they might already be there.


End file.
